Conventional approaches to firearms training have been based on the use of targets that have indicia placed on the surface that is presented to the shooter. These targets have been utilized in point shoulder shooting, two handed slow and rapid fire or in quick-draw, shooting from the hip practice drills as well as in combat hand gun training and matches. Generally all of the silhouette type targets have been provided with indicia that directs the attention of the shooter to the chest cavity in order to cause the shooter to aim for the heart of the figure depicted on the target. These targets have been full front views in the case of human silhouettes and full side views in the case of large animal targets.
The prior firearms training systems have failed to adequately simulate conditions that are encountered by police officers and others who must use firearms in self defense or for other purposes. The deficiency of these systems lies primarily in a failure to simulate the target that will actually be presented to the shooter and in failing to instruct the shooter what zones of the anatomy should be targeted in order to disable the human or animal subject.
A bullet that enters the chest cavity and damages the heart or lungs will usually cause death within a short time. However, these type of wounds do not necessarily prevent the wounded individual from being able to squeeze the trigger of a handgun while continuing to be a lethal threat to his victim. Heart or lung shots are believed to be a throwback to the hunters technique of preserving the trophy-head by shooting at a vital zone that would result in killing the animal without leaving a mark on the trophy-head. These shots are not rapidly effective when a handgun caliber is used. Usually, it is necessary to use a hunting rifle caliber to obtain rapid or instantaneous disablement of the targeted subject by wound cavitation and trauma. Combat handgun calibers cannot deliver sufficient foot-pounds of energy on target to rapidly disable a targeted subject. Prior art combat silhouette targets assign the highest possible score to the heart and lung shots. It is believed that one of the prime reasons for the failure of the so called "heart-lung" shots to immediately disable the subject is that when bullets strike body tissues there is no immediate pain response that causes the subject to lose control over his voluntary muscles. Almost invariably there is never any immediate pain or drastic fall in blood pressure that occurs when a targeted subject or armed assailant is hit with a bullet in the area of the heart or lungs. This physiological phenomenon allows such an assailant to function in a potentially lethal manner. This is due to the failure of handgun projectiles to generate sufficient hydrostasis or foot-pounds of energy to sufficiently damage vital organs to immediately disable a targeted subject.
Accordingly, it is a primary object of this invention to provide an improved firearm training system and target that more closely simulates conditions that are likely to be encountered with human or animal subjects.
It is also an object of this invention to provide a method for training the shooter to aim for those areas of the anatomy that will result in the instantaneous disability of a human or animal subject.